


The Wrong I Did

by countessofbiscuit



Category: The Drop (2014)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Gun Violence, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pre-Canon, Prostitution, Racism, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-11 09:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7042495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/pseuds/countessofbiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doorway of Saint Dom’s yawned before him. He thought, really thought, for the first time of the portals of Hell. </p><p>“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Bob whispered into the frigid night, watching the words rise in front of him and dissolve like holy incense or the smoke of flaming pyres.</p><p>“It has been three-hundred and sixty-five days since my last confession.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A catalogue of Bob's sins and some backstory. I have a pretty good idea where this thing is going, but who knows. 
> 
> The title is from Hozier's "Work Song".

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cousin Bob Saginowski. An accident from conception until the minute he got himself shot in the gut on that crackhead’s porch trying to convince the inhabitants they really didn’t want to skip town before paying off their debt.
> 
> In that minute, fucking disgusting as that colostomy bag was, Bob finally became useful.

Marv picked up the sandwich his sister Dottie had foisted in front of him the minute he’d kicked off his shoes and relaxed into his Barcalounger. 

"Eat something."

Marv obeyed. He owed his considerable girth to years of such obedience. Mother hen for a sister with no one of her own to mother. Smokes didn’t help. But the sleep apnea did gave him ample time to ruminate over how to get one back over on those fucking Chechnians. 

A glob of mayonnaise landed on his shirtfront. No wonder, the sandwich was positively smothered with it.

_Smothered. Smother. Mother. Bob._

The associations cascaded over one another like they always did, always had, in Marv’s mind, ever since he could remember. He would have argued with a Harvard linguist that those two words, well, somewhere back in Ye Old England, there was a mother just like Aunt Elaine who’d coddled her son into uselessness and the exasperated village people came up with a word for it. 

Cousin Bob Saginowski. An accident from conception until the minute he got himself shot in the gut on that crackhead’s porch trying to convince the inhabitants they really didn’t want to skip town before paying off their debt. 

In that minute, fucking disgusting as that colostomy bag was, Bob finally became useful. 

\- - - - - - - -

Bob was devout. 

He was devout because his parents were, his father the faithful early-rising usher at Saint Dom’s, his mother eternally clutching her rosary, mumbling prayers for good health and a long life she didn’t think her son could hear. God didn’t seem to hear them either — but Bob never allowed himself to think that for long without crossing himself and hastily taking it back. 

Bob was devout. But next to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all His angels and saints, Bob secretly worshipped Cousin Marv. The boss man. Leader of a _crew_. His own bar, his own stool in that bar, and all the respect and lifted glasses that came with it. 

Bob didn’t exactly want to be Marv — Marv having no steady girl, and there was a little pedestal carved out between Marv and the Almighty Host where SHE, as yet unknown and unnamed, would stand — but he wanted to bask in some of that reflected honor. Wanted to stop loafing on the outside of life and finally get inside it, get his hands around it and feel what it was like to be a part of something bigger than his own self, his own awkwardness and comfortable, but not _respectable_ , domesticity. Didn't want to wake up aged forty eating leftover meatloaf off Ma's plastic-covered sofa still wondering what it felt like to do something "for shits and giggles."

And when Bob’s father died on his eighteenth birthday, Bob’s only male confidant lowered into the grave, he felt this yearning even more keenly. The clink of beer bottles on a Thursday night, the competitive goading, the moan of a satisfied girl, the silent, implicit one-for-all-and-all-for-one trust — teenage Bob wanted to hear those ringing in his ears instead of church bells or chants. 

Marv thought him something of a screwball, and Bob was perfectly aware of this. "Boy's slower than Dottie's fucking Buick on January morning." He’d heard that one, and many other, crueller ones besides. There was so much going on in his head, so many pistons firing… but his engine was faulty. Couldn’t ever shift far out of neutral. But there was no way to explain that to Marv without sounding even _more_ squashed in the head. 

Bob would have to _do_ something, something the other guys shrank from, something that was so boneheaded, it’d either earn him the cred he so craved or a snug hole in the ground next to his father. 

It might even get him a girl.

\- - - - - - - - - 

Bob could smell the house from across the street. Sure, his parish was no Brooklyn postcard, but people at least rolled out their trashcans on designated days and patched up rotting roofs and broken windows with money they didn’t have.

Any money the people in this neighborhood had slipped through their fingers and into a syringe and their entire lives fell into neglect around them. Discarded junk heaped against the sagging, mottled walls of houses; weeds conquering every crack in driveways and sidewalks; shoddy cars with missing wheels and bumpers reminded Bob of the zombie shows on TV. 

But it was the stench of unwashed filth that made his eyes water and made him question taking one step closer towards his resolution.

When he did make that step, he had to shake a sticky condom off his boot. 

The discomfiting silence was only penetrated now and then by the distant bark of a dog. He had been standing opposite the house for some time to watch for signs of life, but on detecting nothing, he had to go with his gut and assume that crackheads as far gone as these had nowhere else to be on a Monday night. 

All he knew about the bums possibly holed up in this dump were that they had been substituting regular repayments with cocaine and recently, even that had dried up. Bob was not even supposed to hear that much; he’d arrived early to his own birthday celebration — belated on account of the funeral — at Cousin Marv’s bar and had heard Marv and friend discussing the situation from the bar’s kitchen. 

_“Asshole and his whore wife still owe three large. Say they’ve handed over more than that in snow, but that wasn’t the original deal. Found out they actually live over in Brownsville. 35 Hyde Street.”_

_“Shit.”_

_“Yeah, told me they were fucking locals. But between you and me, Benny, I’d sooner try to bring a hand grenade through security at JFK than roll up into Brownsville with four guys and a small armoury in the trunk for three large. I know they’re a couple of shithead lowlifes, but amped up and in someone else’s yard? No fucking way. They’ll get outta Dodge and it’ll be sayonara to three grand. Horses made bank this weekend, though, thank fuck for that.”_

Marv had seemed about to flip his shit when he came out front and saw Bob sitting there at the bar, flipping the menu over in his hands and trying not to look contrite, but perhaps thinking better of it on account of the birthday and desire not to make a scene, Marv just plastered on a great big ole smile on his scruffy mug and poured Bob a Guinness, winking at him not to tell his ma or the cops. 

Before he’d even drained the glass Bob had decided 35 Hyde Street was his golden opportunity. He’d pull this one off and ride it easy with the crew for the rest of his days. Coming down hard on people wasn’t Marv’s style anyway — he was more of a schmoozer, free drinks, discounted coke, better rate next time, that sort of thing. There would be no further call for violence. 

But tonight, broad-framed, bone-headed Bob might have to hurt someone. He didn’t relish the thought, but he tenderly fingered the handgun in his jacket pocket all the same and rehearsed the plan in his mind for the thousandth time. 

_Hop the fence. Pull out and cock the gun. Kick in the back door. Scan the room for life. Possibly fire a warning shot into the ceiling. Demand three thousand dollars. Possibly maim some legs. Grab money. Run. Present money to Marv. Breathe again._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the idiocy that would send his adolescent cousin into the worst neighborhood in Brooklyn to steal three thousand dollars off some dangerous junkies, but Marv certainly wasn’t going to let him bleed out in the middle of Brownsville on a Monday night. That sort of heroic lunacy deserved a high-class escort and a three-course steak dinner _at least._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 12+ years of fannish lurking (in everything from LOTR to Inception), this is the first fic I've ever published. So I'm not sure you guys know how delighted I was by your comments?! Thanks so much :D Chapter 3 is well under way!

There were thirty-one seconds on the clock during the Jets game and Marv really wanted to ignore Bob’s call. Marv’s retarded cousin wasn’t in the habit of bothering him — or anybody, kid never ruffled a feather in his life, not even his own — but he didn’t want to encourage the behavior. You could train a dog by withholding reinforcement, and what was Bob really but a halfwit stray he couldn’t shake? 

Marv lit another cigarette. Seven seconds dropped off the clock. 

Bob’s number again flashed on the analog screen, the vibration sending the phone tumbling off the table and onto a half-eaten bag of chips on the floor. The irritating buzz and crinkle ceased after a few moments before beginning again, this time with the Jets on a first down on the ninth yard line. 

Marv could no longer ignore the distraction. He heaved himself forward in his lounger and groped for the phone. 

“What is it, cuz? You do know the Jets are playing tonight.”

A groan and the sound of shoes shuffling awkwardly across pavement was all the reply he got. 

“Bob. BOB.”

“Mmm, yeah… sorry to bother you, but — ummm…. fuck…”

“Jesus, Bob, do you want to wait till my retirement or what? The fuck is it?”

“I’ve been shot.”

Marv wasn’t sure he’d heard that right since the Jets had just scored on a miraculous throw and he was tallying his meager winnings in his head. 

“What?”

“I’ve been shot. In the stomach. Somewhere.” 

Marv flung himself out of his lounger with a speed that even he found impressive.

“You’ve been _shot_? Are you --" Marv nearly asked _Are you sure?_ but figured, simple and retiring as Bob was, getting shot wasn't something a guy could easily mistake. Unless he'd been knifed? God, even worse. His mind was spinning, trying to connect any possible dots between his wallflower cousin and… well, anyone, but he was coming up blank.

"Why the fuck are you calling me, call 911, for fuck’s sake,” Marv shouted into the phone. “Where are you? Does your ma — ”

The audible crunch of an exhausted body collapsing onto pavement interrupted this frantic questioning. 

“BOB!” he shouted into the phone. 

After a few pants, Bob could be heard to say, “Brownsville. In Brownsville.”

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

“Jesus, no. Got coke and money on me.”

Marv paused at the door with the key fob in his hand. “What?”

More heavy panting. “Three large. Your three large. I’ve got it.”

_The bar. Bob’s birthday. Benny. The Guinness. 35 Hyde Street._

It took a minute to compute, but when it did Marv had to grab onto the doorframe to stop himself from fainting down the basement stairs. 

He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the idiocy that would send his adolescent cousin into the worst neighborhood in Brooklyn to steal three thousand dollars off some dangerous junkies, but Marv certainly wasn’t going to let him bleed out in the middle of Brownsville on a Monday night. That sort of heroic lunacy deserved a high-class escort and a three-course steak dinner _at least._

“I’m coming now, Bob. Don’t fucking move. Stay where you are.” Marv pulled out a dusty Glock from inside an old Tide bottle under the sink. Still loaded. “Where are you anyway? Don’t tell me you’re still near the house.”

“Next street over. Marley. Near a tire sign.”

“Stay the fuck there. I’m coming. And Bob?”

“Yeah?”

“Jets won.”

\- - - - - - - - - -

Marv had half a mind to pull by the bar and grab some backup — Benny, Todd, anyone — but fuck, he just didn’t have the time. He’d seen a fair share of torso wounds in his time and they rarely ended well. Turned a man’s strong centre into a soft, gooey, mess, bent him in half and let the life ooze out of him with every passing minute. 

Speaking of gut-wrenching pain, Marv didn’t fancy the mortification of having to walk up Aunt Elaine’s prim porch and tell that feeble, pious woman that her only son — her miracle baby — had been killed by some crackheads. The thought forced Marv’s foot harder onto the gas. 

Marv had been steeped in New England Catholicism since birth just like the rest of them, but disgraced choir boys didn’t read the Bible backwards and forwards like Aunt Elaine, and he was sure there was probably some curse from the Almighty she could call down upon him. Like Abraham’s wife, she’d prayed for years for a child; Marv had no doubt she could pray for just as long for that child’s death to be avenged. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Brownsville wasn’t but a five-minute fast drive from Marv’s house. He swerved onto Marley street, half shitting himself anticipating the sight of Bob’s crumpled corpse illuminated in his headlights. Roadkill always made Marv squirm. 

It took him a moment to realize he’d sped right past a decrepit sign for Edgar Tires; it was unlit, the plexiglass shattered, no dark heap below it. Marv couldn’t afford to screech to a halt and wake the inhabitants of this god-forsaken street. He just braked slowly and reversed, scanning the sidewalk until he saw an unmistakeable dark stain. 

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, half inclined to cross himself for the first time in years. 

He dashed his lights and rolled down his window, not at all eager to step out of the safety of his car before he’d actually spotted Bob. The handgun wedged into the tight pocket of his jeans was digging a painful grove into his thigh. 

“BOB!” he shouted in a hoarse whisper out the window.

A rustle. There. Underneath an overgrown shrub. Behind a shredded discarded sofa. 

A groan. 

Marv threw himself against the car door with a thud before remembering to unlock it. He tried not to look at the stain on the pavement again as he scrambled over to the shrub, practically tossing the sofa out of the way with all the strength of frenzied mother heaving a car off her trapped child. 

There he was. Barmy Bob. Curled up in the fetal position, the inside sleeves of his blue-checked flannel shirt stained dark where he had them pressed into his gut. But Mary, Mother of God, he was still breathing. Marv pulled a roll of duct tape from his coat pocket and with shaking fingers picked for the edge. 

“Hey buddy, hey Bob,” Marv found himself cooing. His own sister probably wouldn’t have recognized him in that moment. “We gotta get you off the ground. You’re gonna have to move your arms.” 

“No.”

“Bob. You’re going to fucking die here if we can’t stop the bleeding. And umm…,” Marv took a few nervous glances around, “those shitheads —”

Bob shook his head. “Can’t move.” 

“You gotta move.”

“No. Them. They can’t move.” 

Marv didn't really want to know. 

“Take the stuff. The stuff. Take it,” Bob moaned, a disturbing gurgle beginning to punctuate his words. 

“Fuck the stuff, you gotta get to the hospital.” 

“Take the stuff. Left pocket. Call an ambulance. ’S faster.”

Shit, put a bullet in the kid and suddenly he’s fucking Einstein. 

Marv scrambled into Bob’s left pocket, trying desperately the ignore the wet sensation on his fingers and the sweet smell hitting his nostrils. He pulled out a wad of damp money and three bags of powder. 

“Holy hell, Bob. More like _seven_ large.” 

It was Christmas. Marv couldn’t help himself smiling from ear to ear, and actually chuckled when he spotted a shit-eating grin on Bob’s pale face. Marv dug a little deeper into the pocket and found Bob’s shiny new Nokia, a fucking generous birthday gift from Marv himself.

“I’m gonna call 911, make like I’m you, and move over a street when I hear sirens. You give ‘em my name so I got an excuse to come to the hospital. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

Marv dialled 911, though it took him a few tries in the dark with tremors emanating now from his very bones. He still wasn’t too confident of Bob’s chances. Kid was talking sense but that was so fucking bizarre Marv thought he might actually be in the final stages severe shock. 

When he’d finished with the responder, Marv stuffed the money and coke into his inside pocket, replaced the phone, and checked Bob’s pulse as best he could. He suddenly felt a real shit about leaving his cousin there under that shrub. Might be the kid’s final moments. Marv didn’t know too much about anatomy, but he figured there was very little chance that bullet didn’t hit something vital and yeah, Bob was a big guy, but damn if he hadn't been bleeding for a long time. And running from Hyde Street… 

Marv waited as long as he could, then grabbed Bob by the ankles.

“Gotta make you easy to find. Sorry.” 

With a heave and an audible gasp from Bob, he dragged his cousin out from the shrub and back next to the dark stain on the sidewalk, where the yellow light from a street lamp on the opposite side just illuminated Bob’s sneakers. 

The sound of sirens made Marv nearly jump out of his skin. He left Bob, who was growing colder by the minute, with all the affection he felt comfortable giving: a couple pats on the shoulder.

"You’re a fucking champ, Bob.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You got nothing?” Marv asked, exasperated. 
> 
> “I haven’t exactly been awake and cooking up an alibi, have I, Marv?”
> 
> “Don’t get fresh with me. You thought you’d just go shoot your way into my problems and come out a-okay on the other side? Expect me to clean up after you?”
> 
> That was exactly what Bob thought, but he knew that wasn’t the right answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although the novella came out in 2009, I'm using 2014 for the events of the film, because I need cell phones, even rudimentary ones :P So the timeline of this story is working back from that. 
> 
> FYI brief sections could be read as minor anti-semitism. 
> 
> Thank you guys again for your feedback!

In the summer of 1981, on the hottest July day on record, Derek Saginowski half carried his ailing forty-seven-year-old wife into the emergency ward of St Mary’s hospital, the both of them convinced she had appendicitis or had ruptured some sort of abdominal cyst. Two days later, Mr. Saginowski wheeled his wife and newborn son of the maternity ward, the stunned mother and father still arguing about what to call the unexpected addition to their family. 

“He should be called Isaac,” the mother insisted, “‘God hath made me laugh!’ It’s properly scriptural.”

“It’s Jewish, that’s what it is.” 

“Your mother was Jewish. He has a rich heritage.”

“Exactly. It’ll confuse people. It’ll confuse him. They’ll be yapping away in Yiddish to his face before he can talk.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How many Jews you know?”

Mr. Saginowski shrugged, “Enough.” 

His wife continued. “Robert’s so… so…” 

“So what?”

“So plain.”

“Now you're being ridiculous. It’s a good sound name. My father’s name, your father’s name. No one but you would have objections to Robert.”

“I still prefer Isaac.”

“Make it his middle name.”

“Why can’t Robert can be his middle name?”

“Look,” the father said, helping his wife out of the wheelchair and into the scorching backseat of his prized Deville. In the happiness of the moment, he nearly failed to remember the garish black scuff mark on the front bumper, a consequence of the first and only time he would allow his disappointing nephew Marv behind the wheel. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” he continued. “Name the kid Robert, and I’ll pay Tony down at Sears to come make you the handsomest crib you’ve ever seen — have him fix up the second bedroom into a nursery, too, whatever colours you want. And,” he smiled, leaning down into the car, real close, “we’ll grab some chocolate shakes, right now.”

Elaine was not a simple woman, not by any means, but she had simple tastes — only the best for her baby boy. Besides, her husband was as stubborn as the day was long, and these past two days had been long indeed. Lord, the _pain._ The _heat._

She screwed up her face as if thinking real hard and looked down at the bundle wakening in her arms, the first protests against the uncomfortable wool blanket forming around his perfect eyes, his perfect mouth. 

“Alright,” she said, “Robert Isaac. Robert Isaac Sagnowski.” 

Her husband smiled, gave a satisfied bang on the car’s roof, and turned back towards the hospital with the empty wheelchair. 

“But Derek,” she shouted after him, “Mind you, I won’t have him called Bob! I won’t!”

\- - - - - - - - - - 

“Bob?” his mother whispered.

The beeping of some machine had partially woken Bob from his deathlike slumber long ago, but it was the sound of his mother’s voice which finally gave him the will to greet the world again. 

The nurses had tried rousing him with questions, he’d even heard Marv rustle about for a while, making awkward one-sided small talk about the Jets game before leaving to chat up a nurse in the corridor, but Bob wouldn't fight the drowsy hug of morphine for anyone but his ma. 

But it was still with great reluctance that he began to tease his eyelids open.

How to explain? 

How to justify getting shot by drug addicts? How to justify getting shot at all, when Bob had never been late for dinner in his life, had never once been heard to curse, and spent his evenings doing crossword puzzles in front of Wheel of Fortune? Of course, he did other things besides, but those were things his ma didn’t see, the things he hated himself for. 

She had sandwiched his hand in between hers. Bob feebly gave one of them a reassuring squeeze. 

“Oh Bob, oh sweetheart. I’m here now. I’m here.”

What version of the truth should he tell? All of it? None of it? If only Marv — 

“Hiya Aunt Elaine.”

Bob’s eyes flew open. 

Cousin Marv stood in the doorway, coffee in one hand, half-eaten donut in the other, his unshorn face simpering in a way he believed looked pleasing and casual, but which Bob, even in his admiration, clearly read as _I’m so full of shit._

Bob hoped it was fresh shit -- fresh shit and a fine story to placate his anxious mother.

Elaine didn’t much care for Marv, and all three people in that hospital room knew it. She prayed for him, of course, but from childhood Bob noticed that she took pains not to leave him alone in his older cousin’s company. And she never did favor Marv with slices of cream pie which she so liberally bestowed upon every other houseguest from Tony the repairman to Father Regan. 

Bob swallowed hard. He wanted to open his mouth, to confess some half-truth before his ma skewered Marv with questions and accusations, but she didn’t even lift her head from where it was buried in the sheets next to his leg. 

“Oh Marvin,” she whimpered, shaking her head, “Oh Marvin, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t be like that, Aunt Elaine. I called you as soon as I could. Didn’t want to scare you when he was going to be right as rain, just like the doc said” — addressing Bob now — “So champ, you’ve come back to us. Some night you had —” 

“Why didn’t you tell me he had his insides torn out of him!!” she shouted, gesturing wildly at Bob’s abdomen. “He’ll never recover from this! I’ll never manage — ” she couldn’t continue, throwing her hands over her face and shaking again. 

“Ma,” Bob finally managed, reaching up for her tiny wrist. 

At that, she began to sob, her frail body wracking itself with unspent tears. 

Bob frowned at Marv, as if to say _Now look what you’ve done._

Marv just shrugged and took a sip of coffee, sighing and smacking his lips in satisfaction before settling himself into the chair next to the window. It was certainly light outside, and Bob wondered how long he’d been here, how long it had taken Marv to screw up the courage to call his aunt. 

“Some drive-by aim, huh?” Marv said, gesturing at Bob’s stomach. 

Last night — well, what felt like last night, could have been days ago for all Bob knew — he’d sure felt like his insides were falling out, but he was slowly getting the impression that he really was in for a penny, in for a pound. Being numb from his chest down was not reassuring. 

Marv continued. “Thugs managed to pop a hole right through your prison purse. Or pretty near it. Apparently you’ll be shitting into a bag for a while.”

“Marvin!” Elaine wailed into the sheets. 

“Marv,” Bob pleaded. He stroked his mother’s thinning hair. She dyed it regularly to at least fool her reflection into thinking she wasn’t ageing so quickly. Her decreasing ability to climb the stairs after dinner meant she could no longer fool herself. Or Bob. 

“Come on, Auntie, why don’t you go get yourself some coffee,” Marv suggested, heaving himself out of the chair to help his aunt out of her pitiful position. “Go freshen yourself up. Bob and I are going to have a chat, see if we can’t get to the bottom of what happened.”

Marv looked at Bob with raised eyebrows, nodding his head to goad Bob into assistance. 

“Oh Bob, you gotta tell me everything,” begged his mother. “I can bear it. I _must_ know who did this.”

“Now ma — ” 

“He won’t tell you shi — he won’t tell you _anything_ with you bawling your eyes out like that,” said Marv. “You know Bob, he’ll clam up and a Coney Island fryer couldn’t get him open again. You let me talk to him, okay? You’ll talk to me, won’t you, cuz?”

Bob nodded vigorously. 

“See?” Marv reassured her, gently lifting Elaine out of her chair. “Canteen’s down a floor and on the right. Good coffee. Follow the signs. I’ll come get you in a few minutes.”

“’S alright, ma,” said Bob. “Marv will help me remember. It’ll be okay.”

As his mother tottered past the window and down the hall, Marv rushed back to Bob’s bedside and scooted up a chair real close. 

“Now listen here, cuz. Police will be here any second now you’re awake. Nurses too — bought some time off one of them, but she’ll have to come in sooner or later. One cop was already here. I gave him my statement, kept it brief — I was at the bar, got a call from some paramedic saying you’d been shot in Brownsville, you’re in the OR when I get here. Now what’s your story?”

“Drive-by?” 

“Bingo. What were you doing in Brownsville?”

Bob shrugged. He hadn’t thought this far. Besides, he figured handling the fallout was Marv’s job — figured Marv would have answers, as the leader of a _crew_ and all. Somebody had to be all creative and shit, stay ahead of the game and under the radar, and hell, after his own dad, Marv was pretty much the smartest guy Bob knew. 

“You got nothing?” Marv asked, exasperated. 

“I haven’t exactly been awake and cooking up an alibi, have I, Marv?”

“Don’t get fresh with me. You thought you’d just go shoot your way into my problems and come out a-okay on the other side? Expect me to clean up after you?”

That was exactly what Bob thought, but he knew that wasn’t the right answer. 

“Fucking hell, Bob.” Marv slouched back in his chair, ran a hand over his already balding head. 

“I was getting some weed?” Bob suggested. 

“Don’t know what kind of numbskull goes all the way to Brownsville just for some weed, but it might sell. You’re a kid. Just play young and dumb and tell ‘em it was dark, you didn’t notice anything about the car, yadda yadda. Say nothing else. Maybe ‘cause you got your ass shot off they’ll be nice.” 

“And the World Series.”

“That’s right. Let’s hope the cop’s a fucking Yankees fan.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncle Derek, god rest the miserly bastard, had one hell of a life-insurance policy and one hell of a vintage car. 
> 
>  Unfortunately, he’d also left behind a useless, sickly wife who’d been too old when she’d miraculously gotten knocked up, and now could barely lift herself out of a chair, much less help her bruiser of a teenage son scrub his ass. 
> 
> So that seven grand was no longer an offering, no longer Christmas. It was payment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more Bob's POV chapters, I promise! In the meantime, here's more Miserable Marv.

On an eye-blisteringly cold morning in a winter that would only get worse, and having just dropped a cigarette into his morning joe, Marv was already nurturing a feeling of profound self-pity when Dottie’s beige Buick pulled into the drive, a wheelchair peeking out of the trunk.

Didn’t even have time for a proper smoke before the kid arrived and fucked up his life. 

Marv possessed a constitutionally lower threshold for being imposed upon than anyone with twice his merit and half his good fortune had any right to be. Last time Todd asked if he could borrow Marv’s truck to pick up some floor tiles for his bathroom remodelling, Todd found himself with a truck, but with an engine running on fumes and a flat tire Marv swore up and down had been a-okay ten minutes ago. To Marv’s way of thinking, being self-sufficient and successful enough to not have to ask favors, meant no one with a brain and an ounce of self-respect should request any in return — and having to tend this convalescent retarded cousin who’d got himself shot doing something nobody asked him to do was some fucking favour indeed. 

And if he’d been on the hook for Bob’s hospital bills too, well, he’d probably have sent the kid back to Brownsville and told him to go shoot up some more crack dens — or more realistically, wheel himself around Manhattan holding a tin cup and peddling some tale of woe. 

But Uncle Derek, god rest the miserly bastard, had one hell of a life-insurance policy and one hell of a vintage car. 

 Unfortunately, he’d also left behind a useless, sickly wife who’d been too old when she’d miraculously gotten knocked up, and now could barely lift herself out of a chair, much less help her bruiser of a teenage son scrub his ass. 

So that seven grand was no longer an offering, no longer Christmas. It was payment. 

Marv tossed the ruined coffee over the rail and ambled down the porch steps to greet his charge. 

“You help Bob out of the back, Marv,” ordered Dottie, “I’ll get the wheelchair. Grab him under the arms gently now, he’s not a sack of potatoes.”

“Okay, Nurse Ratched.”

Bob looked up at him from the backseat with a doleful expression Marv really wanted to smack off his face.

Too late to feel sorry about everything, Bob. Far too late for that. 

Happily, once Marv and Dottie had manhandled their cousin up the porch steps and onto the couch in the back room, he pretty much passed out. 

Nothing was more uncomfortable than trying to socialise with Bob, and the thought of spending six weeks’ with his watchful silence was enough to make Marv want to set up camp in the bar’s kitchen. 

“I’m gonna run to the store, grab some dinner and ice cream for the kid. What does he like?” asked Dottie, adjusting her large track pants in the mirror. 

Marv shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Nevermind. Want anything?”

“Yeah, a box of nuclear grade surgical gloves, a big bottle of Sleep Aid, and a handle of Jack. Gonna snuff myself if the kid doesn’t get to me first.”

Dottie frowned. “Why you gotta be like that? What has he ever done to you?” She picked up her bag to leave. “You _will_ be nice to him. Make him feel at home. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Before stepping out the door, she doubled back and threw a blanket over Bob, patted his head all mother-like. This would be heaven for Dottie. She’d taken a whole week off work and rented half of Blockbuster’s rom-com shelves like nursing their cracked cousin was some sort of holiday. Well bully for her. 

Marv figured he finally deserved the day’s first cigarette. As he stepped outside to light up, he wondered how Rocky Road would come out looking like in that fucking nauseating bag dangling off his cousins’ gut, and suddenly he didn't feel like a smoke, didn’t feel like coffee. 

Didn’t feel like doing anything but maybe trying a line or two off some of Bob’s blow. 

Which is exactly what he did. And what he kept doing for the next five years.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob couldn’t say what he wanted — besides a girl, which now seemed like pipe dream in his current state — but it certainly wasn’t being made to feel like a festering cyst on his cousin’s backside. 
> 
> Anyone else would have resented the ingratitude; Bob just felt ashamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the ages it's taken to get this chapter up. I've been preparing for lectures and going to job interviews -- with happy results!

Bob never learned what happened to the coke and cash which had cost him twelve weeks of unusual intimacy with his digested meals. The resulting intimacy with Cousin Marv had proven so uncomfortable, Bob had balked from broaching the subject… assumed he would never see a dime of it — not that he’d really expected a _cut_ … nor did he particularly want the blow. 

Bob couldn’t say what he wanted — besides a girl, which now seemed like pipe dream in his current state — but it certainly wasn’t being made to feel like a festering cyst on his cousin’s backside. 

Anyone else would have resented the ingratitude; Bob just felt ashamed. 

The sound of Cousin Marv snapping on those surgical gloves in the many days before Bob could stand upright had nearly made him sick at both ends. He’d press himself into the couch, hoping it would swallow him up before Cousin Marv came close enough, smelling of cigarettes and exasperation. 

The only thing that nearly made the whole fucking ordeal worthwhile were the visits of Marv’s buddies. The _crew_. Bob hadn’t been two days pining on that couch before Todd, Benny, and some other guys Bob recognized from the bar barrelled into the house, handed Bob a beer — which Marv sensibly took away, citing doctor’s orders — and demanded the whole story from the horse’s mouth. 

Marv hadn’t let him say much, being unusually solicitous about Bob’s rest and wellbeing, but what he did say certainly impressed the crew. 

“Kid needs a job, Marv. One that wont get him shot at too much. Why don’t you let him tend bar?” suggested Todd.

“I already got two bartenders,” replied Marv.

“He took a fucking bullet for you. Least you could do is fire one of them lazy bastards and help the kid out,” Todd went on. He took a swig of his beer and eyed Bob. “Going to college, Bob?”

Bob shook his head, about to give some excuse about not feeling like it, when Marv answered for him.

“College? His ma wouldn’t let him get so far as Manhattan — and the kid isn’t exactly Columbia material.”

Todd turned to Bob. “That’s not what I hear, but you got loads of time. Take a year or two. Work for your cousin here, see a bit of the real world, then go off and get a degree in … oh, I dunno, business or some shit. Come back and you’ll be running the place. ‘Bob’s Bar.’ Sounds nice, huh?”

Bob smiled feebly. It did sound nice. 

“I’ll, uh, settle for being a bartender,” he said carefully, hopefully.

Marv just grunted and told the guys to fuck out of his house before Dottie came home.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - 

Eight weeks later, his ass all sewed back together and functioning again, Bob was sitting down to a bowl of Cheerios with his ma on the day of his first shift at Cousin Marv’s. He was having a hard time making her understand the appeal of working at a sports bar versus cutting bolts of fabric in a shop which had to revoke its senior discount to avoid chapter eleven.

“I don’t like it, Bob. I don’t like it one bit,” said his mother, flipping a page of the Saint Dom’s newsletter. “Marvin is a very immoral individual.”

“He’s going to pay me more than Mrs. Newman, ma. And she’s so —, ” Bob had nearly said _old_ , but caught himself. Mrs. Newman had been his ma’s roommate in teaching college. “ — so uncertain. She keeps talking about retiring. Cousin Marv’s is a good opportunity.” 

His mother closed the newsletter pointedly and frowned at him across the table. 

“It’s a good opportunity for you to get shot at again, that’s what it is. I never asked you what you were doing that night, and I don’t intend to now. I think it would break my heart to know. But I have every reason to believe your cousin was involved.”

“Ma,” Bob sighed, “he just spent six weeks helping me get better.”

“You owe him nothing, Bob. _Nothing_. The debt is mine. Not yours. Besides, Dottie deserves all the credit. If only I could get her to come to mass…”

Bob got up to dump his milk into the sink and kissed his ma’s head.

“And tell me,” she continued, “what will poor Nancy do without you? She really _will_ have to retire if you walk out on her.” 

“I’ll still work there in the mornings, ‘least until she finds a replacement. Don’t worry about her, or me, ma. I’ve got to go.”

Bob pulled his vest off the coat hook and opened the door to leave.

His ma called out after him. “You owe him _nothing_! Remember that!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It didn’t take Marv a year to burn through the Christmas blow. And it didn’t take him a month before he started blaming Bob for his habit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing about this fic is really canonical when it comes to specific dates, but I've tried to preserve age differences (since I think they are important). 
> 
> Starting to wander into explicit territory, so I've updated the tags. 
> 
> Thanks again for all the love you've given this! :D

When Bob said he wanted a girl, having a prostitute ride him like she was going hell-for-leather in the last leg of the Preakness was not what he meant. 

The room was unseasonably balmy and both of them were sweating buckets — she from exertion, Bob from nerves and the conflicting fear of disgusting Cousin Marv or disappointing his priest. 

_A man who hides from confession is no man at all._

His father had always been adamant on that point. 

But then again, his father, to Bob’s knowledge, had never lain with a woman on a cheap motel bed and handed her a Benjamin to drop her panties and spread her legs. Maybe he could confess in the next parish over; the priest at Saint Mary’s would be none the wiser that this reprobate was Elaine Saginowski’s son. 

A fleshy breast smacked Bob in the face and returned him to girl heaving to and fro around his erect cock. That it felt intensely nice was undeniable, and he was relieved that she didn’t seem to notice the scar just above his pubes, but self-consciousness was slowly making him go soft. 

That would be par for the course — having to confess to a half-finished sin. 

The girl had braced herself against the dusty headboard, her jugs dangling above his overwhelmed face. Bob wondered if the vigorous movement hurt, bouncing about like that, and he cautiously lifted his hands to cup them together. 

Startling a topless Dottie when he was five and eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly at her kitchen table; sneaking into _Risky Business_ when he was twelve and forever pondering the possibility of trains; catching a glimpse of some absolute honkers in a magazine over the shoulders of other guys in school; holding Bridget Bennis’s double-d’s for an entire minute at her insistence for some girlish dare; going with Dottie to see a nude Kate Winslet drape herself over a sofa in _Titanic_ — these were Bob’s experiences with breasts.

As to what one did with them, besides gape in awe at their plump roundness and squeeze them playfully, Bob had little idea.  
 The girl took pity on him. She dropped her hands to either side of his head and descended her boobs onto his face. 

“Lick them, if you want,” she panted. 

Happy to have some direction, Bob obeyed. His tongue slid over her salty skin, awkwardly slipping over the hard bump of her nipple. She let out a moan. A real one? 

Bob repeated the motion before lingering on the nipple of the other breast. Another moan. Progress. 

He felt himself stiffen inside her, confidence reviving, and when he experimentally sucked her nipple into his mouth, she clenched around him in such a way that made Bob’s head swim. Within moments he was past the point of no return and his alarmingly brazen hands flew to her thick backside, pushing her down atop him as he finished inside her. 

For a few blissful seconds, he felt at peace — this was his girl in his bed, and they could sneak down to the kitchen for some of ma’s chocolate blintzes and giggle at the silliness of it all. 

“Just beat the clock,” the girl said, almost before Bob could focus again.

She lifted herself off her knees, letting out a soft “shit” as she eased her way off the bed and pulled on her thong and jeans. 

Bob looked down at his limp dick and the sticky, swollen condom plopped like some marine invertebrate onto his sweaty thigh. He jerked the sheet up to cover the sad sight and wondered if that was really what all the fuss was about. 

The moan of a satisfied girl was awfully fleeting. 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

It didn’t take Marv a year to burn through the Christmas blow. And it didn’t take him a month before he started blaming Bob for his habit. 

Bob’s mad crackhouse windfall was not generally known — it was Benny’s line of work to move the stuff, and Marv would be fucked before he’d let four grand get sliced to pieces. The relationship between Marv’s liberality and the size of any proverbial pie was a sharply inverse one.

So Marv tallied his disdain of Bob with every line he did on the bathroom counter and persuaded himself that handing over crisp hundred for Bob to get his first lay — _Jesus Christ, nineteen and never been fucked_ — was more than the kid deserved. 

Marv was sitting on his stool nursing a mid-day whiskey and wondering how Giselle found his awkward cousin when Bob shuffled into the bar, shoulders hunched and eyes darting around like he was always expecting to knock over a fucking Ming vase. 

“So. You’re late,” Marv began. 

“Yeah, sorry about that, Marv.”

“Giselle tire you out? Or were you arousing the priest with your confession?”

Bob gave him a tired look and continued with the bar prep. 

“At least tell me if you liked it or not.” 

“If he liked what?” asked Benny, who emerged from the back of the bar. 

“Bob got his whistle wet for the first time with Giselle last night,” replied Marv.

“Marv —,” Bob pleaded.

“Well fuck me. We all gotta start somewhere kid, and she’s got an ass like — ” 

“Benny. Jesus. Can we not … can you shut up?” Bob asked, slamming a bag of ice on the counter. 

“Alright, alright, no need to wind yourself up,” said Benny. He squeezed Bob’s shoulder and mumbled something about being a gentleman. 

Marv lit a cigarette, annoyed at Bob’s tight-lipped righteousness and the apparent waste of a good hundred bucks. Bob would have to pay for it himself from now on, or find a girl cracked enough to ride the silent bruiser for free. But then again, girls lose their shit over Byronic heroes — Marv couldn’t say who Byron was, but he remembered the term from high school lit — and Bob was nothing if not a broody and tortured bastard. 

Benny joined Marv at the bar and swiped the open newspaper from him. 

“Bob, you went to East Buckingham, yeah?” asked Benny. 

“Yeah,” said Bob. 

“You play football there?”

“No.”

“Whadya mean, ‘no’? You got full back written all over you. Might have saved them a humiliation or two,” said Benny, shaking his head. “Anyhows, you know a Richie Whelan?”

“Nah. I mean, I’ve heard his name, but I don’t _know_ him.”

“Ah. Well says here he’s East Buck’s new quarterback. God help him.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s up, Cousin Marv? Can I call you cousin now? I really feel like we could be.” 
> 
> Marv knit his brow in protest, but thought better of it. What the hell. 
> 
> “Sure. Tonight, I’ll treat you like family. Let’s go to the bar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started a new job recently, hence the delay in getting this latest chapter up. It was a bitch to write, and I am not 100% happy with it -- I feel there's so much more to convey as we near the climax, but hey ho. 
> 
> Enter: Richie Whelan.
> 
> (I've updated the tags to reflect some racist and homophobic content in this chapter.)

Bob couldn’t say whether the prayers for the sick and dying his parents had taught him were valid for junkies like his Cousin Marv, or whether he needed some other set of liturgical phrases. Five years of casual appeals to the Almighty for his cousin’s wellbeing had clearly been about as helpful as administering smelling salts to a stroke victim. He needed something stronger. 

Fire and brimstone was more to his ma’s taste than his dad’s. The latter used to bless his nightcap of Oreos and milk with a heartwarming Our Father, his ma with the sinister — at least, so it always struck Bob — prayer of Saint Michael. 

_Cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls._

Every day that Cousin Marv came into the bar with bloodshot eyes, sniffling over a Coors and spewing bigger talk than usual, Bob sank lower under the onerous belief that he had been a vehicle for such an evil spirit. His reckless ambition had been Marv’s undoing. Mentally. Physically. Financially. Where he got the money to keep up his habit, Bob hardly wanted to know. 

“He’s shaving, kid,” Benny had said. “Work with a guy like that and you’ll get more than just your fingers sliced.” Two weeks later he’d washed his hands of the crew and relocated to Hoboken. The second casualty.

Sometimes, after a binge and flush from a weekend as bookie, Marv favored Bob with such distinction and responsibility, would actually talk about going clean just as soon as he could afford some fucking treatment, Bob felt his heart would give out between swelling with pride and oozing with secret shame.

Kneeling in the pew just then, he almost imagined it was his soul weeping with contrition that dampened his shirt front, and not the rain from a glacial December afternoon. If only relieving the gnawing in his breast were that simple. Just a puddle of exonerated sins on the marble floor for some altar boy to mop up. 

“… cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls,” Bob whispered into his hands. He hoped the holy air of the church would lend some potency to his plea, crossed himself, and sat upright.

“That’s the third time you’ve prayed that in as many minutes.”

Bob turned round, startled, and found himself looking at Father Reagan, who had come from God knows where. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in here. What’s the matter?” asked the priest. 

Bob glanced down at the marble floor looking for the puddle of shame that would betray him. He wanted to wordlessly peel back his ribs and reveal to Father Reagan the black burden metastasizing around his soul. But without the shadowed security of a confessional — and it’d been months since he’d seen the inside of one of those — Bob’s tongue swelled up and his woes wedged stubbornly inside his chest. 

“Nothing,” Bob lied. 

“Well, I don’t mean to limit your choice of prayers, but I think you’re too young for such grim benedictions. Concentrate more on the goodness you feel, not the evil you see.”

“I gotta admit,” Bob murmured, “I don’t see or feel much goodness.”  

“Not with the company you’ve been keeping, maybe.”

A heavy pause. Bob dared not look up, but studied the embroidery on a hassock, worn by countless penitent knees. Across his mind flashed the recollection of Bianca kneeling before his crotch, licking her red lips, teasing open his jeans … his face flushed deeper. 

The priest continued. “Your mother’s worried to death, you know.”

Bob nodded. Drunken bathroom blow jobs from a tattooed atheist weren't the half of it. 

“Well, if you won’t talk to me, keep talking to Him. But not just now.” Father Reagan stood up and gave Bob’s shoulder a pat. “Rain’s stopped and I’ve got a choir party to oversee. Give your mother my thanks again for the pies — and it would be nice to see you with her at mass tomorrow. God Bless.” 

Bob gave another nod, this one more convincing than the last. "God Bless," he replied and lifted himself from the pew with heavy limbs.

What did Cousin Marv want with prayers anyway. He wanted funds. He wanted the wad of bills stuffed inside the lining of Bob's quilted vest, the result of a successful recirculation of some BMW parts. And he wanted Bob to arrive at the bar earlier than usual that afternoon to continue some hair-brained and desperate scheme of offloading some stale Zima at premium out the back door to high schoolers who were gullible enough to believe the stuff actually fooled breathalyzers and were stocking up for New Year's.

The holy water he'd used to bless himself burned Bob's fingers in the icy air. He wished that instead of unethical alcohol rackets, Marv’s blue-sky thinking would tend more towards fixing the central heating in the bar. It was going to be a long night. 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - 

When Richie Whelan found Marv in the gym toilets that evening, he couldn’t have met with a more cantankerous individual in all the locker rooms of New York state. 

Not naturally good-humored — especially not these days, certainly not in the dead of winter, and definitely not after that asshat Quincy, a joke of a coke dealer, stood him up for the third time in a month — Marv was downright pissed off at the world that Monday evening. He’d arrived to find his machines coopted by a pack of foreigners whose greasy hair and fucking effeminate sportswear offended him almost as much as their disregard of gym etiquette.

It was the latest in a disturbing series of insults, the most galling of which had been yesterday's blatant appropriation of _his_ chair at the bar not ten seconds after he vacated it by some slick Eastern European. Marv fucking charitably put it down to ignorance, but ordered Bob to appraise the faggot of the way of things around here. 

Something in his cousin’s shallow “mm-hmm” had told him Bob wouldn’t bother.

So Marv was feeling about as obliging as an underpaid transit driver on a smoking break that evening when Richie Whelan strolled up to him under the fluorescent lights at the sinks and shot him a winning smile. 

“I’m not in the market for a rent boy, so if sexual favors are all you got to offer, Richie, I suggest some _glory holes_ at the Metropolitan a couple dozen blocks that way,” Marv said, gesturing vaguely off to the left as he towelled his face. 

“That’s a good one, Marv -- a real good one. But I bet you’ll get stiff enough when I show you what’s in my pocket.”

Marv shot Richie a look of disbelief, both at the kid’s gamble and his fucking fresh attitude. Wasn’t like him to talk back, much less … _banter_. For a startling second, Marv even supposed the kid had worked out his shameful secret and was about to reveal a bag of conciliatory blow. 

“I doubt it,” Marv replied, recovering himself. “But I’m guessing Santa or your gran was good to you. Hand it over and stop wasting my time.”

Richie again flashed a smile that Marv’s entrepreneurial eye told him might actually make the kid a handsome profit, should he ever go into the prostitution line. Marv had only casual experience in that industry, but pimping out a six-foot-four ex-quarterback would certainly count as ‘diversifying’, a concept he was very much taken with at the moment. 

What Richie pulled out of his jeans was neither obscene nor illegal. To Marv’s delight, it was a tightly wrapped Ziploc filled with greenbacks. 

“You won’t believe the Christmas I had,” said Richie, running a hand through his sandy hair as if he’d forgotten how much cash he’d been toting around. “Almost makes a guy believe in God, it does.” 

Marv noticed the top bill was a Benjamin; if they were all as large as that one, there had to be at least ten — no, _twenty_ grand in that bag. 

_Jesus Christ._

“Where the fuck d’you get that from,” asked Marv, trying to sound cool and wary although adrenaline was already searing under his skin. 

“Atlantic City.”

“You made that at the fucking _track_?”

“Nope.” Richie shook his head. “Slots.”

“How much?”

“Twenty. Two. Thousand. Dollars,” Richie replied. He gave out a whooping laugh and fisted the air like an idiot. 

Marv moved to put a hand over the kid’s mouth. “Shut the fuck up, Richie. Jesus.” 

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, Marv. It’s just — I’m _clean_ , you know? Footloose and fancy free and all that shit! Let the real glory days begin!” He laughed again, in spite of himself. “Here, here” he said, taking Marv’s hand and slapping the brick of bills into his palm, “Every penny I owe. And a little change. Cause you’ve been a fucking star about the whole thing. But I fucking swear, I’m never touching another bookie again! Haha!” 

The kid bounced away, doing a little jig, babbling on about his fresh start, a new engine for his car, how he was going to propose to Britni, and some more nonsense that Marv hardly heard. He was staring the Christmas miracle in his hand. 

_Enough dough for all the holes._

Years ago, like a fucking fool, he’d blown the only windfall of his life. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was making that mistake twice. 

He shoved the plastic brick in between some rank clothes in his duffel bag, his mind whirling with possibilities. Calculating risks versus rewards. 

“Richie,” he called out to the kid, who was now taking a celebratory piss. 

“What’s up, Cousin Marv? Can I call you cousin now? I really feel like we could be.” 

Marv knit his brow in protest, but thought better of it. What the hell. 

“Sure. Tonight, I’ll treat you like family. Let’s go to the bar.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Before you start asking questions,” said Marv, “I need to know if you trust me.”
> 
> If there were a more ominous way to begin, Bob couldn’t imagine it. His blood beat a tattoo in his ears but he was growing colder with every second. Of course he didn't trust Marv. Who the fuck did? 
> 
> It was love for his cousin — a little frayed round the edges these days, but still sincere — that whispered the lie: “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I thought apologies for delayed chapters were worthwhile, you'd all have them in spades here. As it is, this one has been sitting nearly complete for weeks, but I kept fiddling with it. Writing was so much easier when I wasn't in full-time employment :P

As he watched the group — Glory Days and his old high school buddies — swigging back Jaegers at the bar, riling each other up and placing bets with pocket change on the outcome of a Clippers game, Bob imagined some alternate universe where he might have been one of them. A universe where he’d been born to younger parents. Where he had a bit more backbone and a bit less spiritual anxiety. Where he hadn’t sought Marv’s validation and had dreamed bigger than his cousin’s level of local notoriety. 

But what could you do? You couldn’t predict things.

He’d just finished pouring a second round of shots for the six friends when Cousin Marv stuck his head out the back and motioned for Bob to join him. 

It was a quiet night, all the usual customers at home eating Christmas leftovers or assembling doll houses or Lego castles with their families. No one was in but the young group sitting front and center and an old woman at the far end nursing a Sazerac and reading _Cosmo_ , apparently insensible to the chill in the room. She had the smell of an ashtray and the look of old parchment that had been singed at the ends.

Marv was leaning back against the kitchen sink, arms crossed, looking pensively down at the ground when Bob walked in. Didn’t seem to register Bob’s entry or much else. He just stared — just stared and occasionally rubbed his stubbly jaw like he was contemplating moving Bishop to E5. 

Bob took the opportunity to open some crates of beers, before becoming unnerved by the silence. 

“Everything okay, Marv?” 

His cousin adjusted his stance, but said nothing. Marv’s pride was probably choking on a favor. That or someone had died.

“Marv,” he said, standing directly in front of him now, confronting the stillness. “Got some bad news?”

Marv started. “No,” he replied defensively. “I mean. Well. It’s a mixed bag.”

“What is?”

Marv reached up to the shelf behind his head and pulled down a wrinkled grocery bag. 

“This,” he said, holding it out at arm’s length.

Bob took it reluctantly, hardly able to guess what it might contain. It was heavy. 

_This is either a million bucks’ worth of blow or a body part._

He opened it and peered cautiously inside. There was a plastic baggie wrapped around a green brick. 

Before he could say anything, one of the guys at the bar shouted Bob's name. Marv put a hand on his shoulder to catch him, gave him a long but vacant look, and walked out to the front, leaving Bob holding what he supposed was about ten thousand dollars. 

Just to be sure, Bob teased open the ziplock with one hand and flipped his thumb over the edge of the stack. 100. 100. 100. 100. Et cetera. Et cetera.

The last time Bob had held such a quantity of money in his hand, he’d gotten a bullet in his ass. Almost instinctively, he set the bag on the edge of the sink and took a few steps back. Now it was his turn to assume a pensive attitude and be lost for words.

Marv returned few minutes later, taking care to shut the door behind him. 

“Before you start asking questions,” said Marv, “I need to know if you trust me.”

If there were a more ominous way to begin, Bob couldn’t imagine it. His blood beat a tattoo in his ears but he was growing colder with every second. Of course he didn't trust Marv. Who the fuck did? 

It was love for his cousin — a little frayed round the edges these days, but still sincere — that whispered the lie: “Yes.”

Marv nodded. He took a few paces towards the money, then a few paces towards Bob. The fidgeting wasn’t unusual, but his clear eyes and measured tone were. This Marv scared Bob to death. 

“You know I’m in over my head. I know you know. You fucking see too much,” Marv began, more to himself than to Bob. “But that” — pointing to the bag — “that is my salvation. And not some hollow christening sprinkling either. We’re talking the fucking crucifixion, zero hour, zero AD. You understand that?”

Bob said nothing. Marv’s sudden turn for religious metaphors didn’t suit him, but then again, it seemed redemption — _cleaning up_ — was on the table and Bob would take another bullet for that. 

“Where did it come from?” Bob finally asked.

“Richie.” 

“ _Richie_?” Bob echoed, incredulous. He glanced towards the door. “The guy. Out there?” 

“Kid had one fucking glorious day in Atlantic City.” 

Bob actually laughed — rather inappropriately given his cousin’s strangely somber mood, but what else could you do in the face of such sheer dumb luck? The kind of luck that used to regularly send Richie’s Hail Mary’s into some teammate’s flailing arms, miraculously winning the game for East Buckingham who’d been down since the first quarter. 

The kind of luck Bob had no familiarity with whatsoever. 

And — _and!_ — after all that, the kid hands it all over. Could have been halfway to Rio by now, could have just up and started a new life someplace equally poor but far warmer and sexier. But instead, the kid paid his debts in full. 

Marv sure as hell didn’t deserve such a fucking class act. 

“I need this money bad,” said Marv, interrupting Bob’s mirth.

“Well,” Bob chuckled out, “it’s sitting right there,” 

“No.” 

Something in his cousin’s contradiction stifled Bob’s smiles. 

 “Why ‘ _no_ ’, Marv?”

“Cause it’s not fucking enough.” 

“You mean, he was in for _more_ than twenty grand? Jesus.” 

“No,” Marv said slowly, as if to an idiot, “I am.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not… I’m not _hurting_ anyone again. If that’s what you’re getting at,” Bob declared. There were no _ifs_ , _ands_ , or _buts_ in his tone. 
> 
> But when Marv made no immediate attempt to reassure him that that wouldn’t be necessary, the unspoken truth settled in Bob’s stomach like a hundred lead bullets. 
> 
> The irony was, since that night in Brownsville, he’d never fired a single one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lordy, it's been a while! My only excuse: I can't write climaxes D:

It was true: Bob _had_ seen too much. 

But it was the things he didn’t see that made all the difference. 

The slump in Marv’s shoulders. The increasingly acerbic bite in his voice. The deceptively plain letters from the bank piling up in the bar’s letterbox. 

Bob noticed all these things. But, then again, a coke habit would do that to a person. 

Who could have guessed that Marv’s disgrace at _selling out_ could hide its face so well behind an addiction. 

Bob never worked on Mondays so he never glimpsed the black Cadillac parked three doors down from the bar, waiting for Marv to shuffle up with a sheepish grin and a rather anaemic brown envelope. 

Bob had thought Zima rackets and a lucky turn for cards were as far as Marv’s outsourcing went now that his crew numbered a grand total of two. Bob might have had some deeper reservations about obtaining repayments down the barrel of a gun if he knew the money was’t destined for the bar but rather to the pockets of the Chechen mafia. 

“How long?” Bob asked his cousin.

“How long what?”

“How long have you — have _we_ been sharks for them.”

“A year. More or less.”

“And you skimmed off twenty grand in a year. Didn’t know you actually took Dottie to Florida like she’s been begging you to do. Or that you paid for that live-in nurse for your dad.” 

Bob knew it was coming — the ‘don’t get fucking fresh with me’ bullshit. But he couldn’t help it, certainly not after being made aware that he was a distant associate of an internationally infamous mafia. 

“I don’t need any of those wise ass observations right this fucking moment,” was all his cousin said. 

Marv remained remarkably placid. His self-importance was clearly being smothered by something. That favor. That favor Bob could now almost see lodged in his cousin’s flabby throat. 

“But you do need _something_ ,” Bob observed, silently praying he was fucking wrong but knowing beyond a doubt he wasn’t. 

“Yes,” Marv replied. He was staring at the floor again. 

When his eyes returned to Bob’s face after another agonising silence, Bob’s heart sank. They were the eyes of a man preparing to do something beyond desperate. 

“Do you remember Brownsville?” Marv asked suddenly.

Bob nodded, unsure.

“How you fucking saved the day?”

That wasn’t how Marv had been spinning that story for the past five years, but yeah. Bob understood the sentiment.

Another nod. 

“You gotta save the day again. You gotta save us both. Get us out from underneath their thumb.” 

Bob had to throw his hand over his mouth to smother a laugh and rubbed his jaw quizzically as if he was really taking his cousin seriously on this one. 

“I… I don’t see what this has gotta do with me.” 

Marv clearly couldn’t help but sneer. “You think you can just walk away?”

“I could. I should. Like Benny and Todd and all the other guys did back when it would have been fucking easy.” 

Marv rushed forward and grabbed Bob’s shirtfront with a ferocity that made Bob’s blood boil and freeze simultaneously. 

“You can’t do that to me!” He shouted in a hoarse whisper. “I need you now! I need to get clean — let’s get clean together! No more guns. No more offloading. None of that shit. Just us and this bar—” Marv gestured with one arm to the cold and dismal bar kitchen like he was offering Bob the penthouse at the Ritz — “ _just us and this bar_.” 

Bob suspected he didn’t feel half as dirty as Marv did — Bob at least felt guilty about everything around the clock and was already paying insurance premiums for the day he’d need his confessional knees replaced… whereas Marv only leaked regrets over a tenth whiskey and narrowly lost bets.

Of course, cleaning up _would_ sound great to Marv, who probably wouldn’t be tugging maniacally at Bob’s collar if he were the one about to jump into the mire… or be pushed into it. 

Bob took a step back, as far as he could move in the small kitchen, and held a hand out to Marv’s chest. 

“I’m not… I’m not _hurting_ anyone again. If that’s what you’re getting at,” Bob declared. There were no _ifs_ , _ands_ , or _buts_ in his tone. 

But when Marv made no immediate attempt to reassure him that that wouldn’t be necessary, the unspoken truth settled in Bob’s stomach like a hundred lead bullets. 

The irony was, since that night in Brownsville, he’d never fired a single one.

Marv couldn’t sense the resignation creeping through Bob’s skin and so he rushed to offer up the only justification he thought his cousin would respect. “They’ll kill me. You know that much. And I know your own mortality is a concept as alien to you as nuclear fucking physics. But these bastards won’t start with you or me. _Fuck no_. They’ll find Dottie. They’ll find your ma.” 

What with the broken heating, Bob hadn’t thought he could get much colder standing there negotiating mortal sin with Marv. But the thought of his mother, his righteous and weak protector, being dragged into this yawning den of iniquity that had become Bob’s life made his heart freeze. 

And for once, he sensed his cousin wasn’t crying wolf. His eyes were too pleading and rimmed with red for that. 

Bob’s arm fell away from where it had been holding Marv at a distance and the gulf between the two men, one on the brink of salvation, the other on the edge of damnation, grew beyond all recognition.

And the words “Richie has to be… taken care of” began their eternal echo in Bob’s head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now? I … I can’t— I … _I just poured their drinks_ ,” Bob choked out, as if shooting a man you’d just poured a beer for was the lowest sort of sin. Benny would have thought so. Todd too. 
> 
> But Marv’s moral code wasn’t above treachery or cruelty. Bob knew that fucking well enough. It recognised only one authority: self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied -- I couldn't get the deed out in one more chapter. The moment of crisis for Bob and Marv had to have a little more time to play out. Whether we'll see Marv again remains to be seen; I think I've had about as much of him as I can handle. It's in Bob's hands now...
> 
> As always, THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE FOR THE AMAZING FEEDBACK <3 It means the world to me :)
> 
> *ALSO* If I haven't left any kudos or comments on other works in this fandom, it's only because I have weird rituals around reading fanfic and try not to read the same stuff I'm writing! But by the looks of it there's a lot of great new fics out there and I can't wait to check them all out when I finish this thing :D

As if on cue, the kid slated for execution shouted for Bob from the other side of the door.

Bob made no move to respond, but Marv once again squeezed his shoulder and gestured for him to stay put. He stalked out of the kitchen leaving his cousin to come to terms with the unspoken request — the unspoken _order_ — alone. 

This was always the way of things. 

Getting his hands dirty made Marv an anxious wreck. Bob wasn't the only Stipler who was a little funny in the head. 

_“What’s the matter with him?”_

_Bob looked up from where he was dabbing Marv’s clammy face with a cold towel. Hoping Benny didn’t notice Marv’s raw hands, blistered by the bloody scouring sponge in the sink. Hoping he didn’t step outside for a smoke and find the asshat punk with a crushed schnoz behind the trash cans._

_“Nothing. Ate something bad.”_

_“Real bad by the looks of it. Jesus. Whatever it was, don’t fix that for lunch!”_

_“Yeah.”_

Cousin Marv. The boss. The king who worshiped his whiskies and bowed to coke on a flimsy leather and aluminum throne and bade his cousin mind the kingdom. Because he could only land a punch when high but always swooned low at the sight of blood. 

Bob barely had a minute to ruminate on the desperate sin they were about to commit before Marv rushed back through the door and dived under the sink. 

“You gotta move _now_ , Bob,” he said with finality, rummaging for something. 

“What?”

“Richie. He’s going out. Now.” 

Bob couldn’t feel his fingers. Whether it was the perennial chill in the kitchen or the fear icing his senses, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t — couldn’t react with anything like the urgency his cousin demanded.

Marv grabbed the nape of Bob’s neck with one hand and with the other shoved his cold metallic salvation into Bob’s frozen fingers. “Bob. _Fucking. Wake. Up._ ” 

The dread which had been creep up from Bob’s gut since the minute Marv had offered him that suspicious plastic bag finally reached his skull. A sort of stinging sadness Bob hadn’t felt since his pa’s funeral ooze into his eyes. He desperately tried to avoid Marv’s stare, turning his glassy eyes in the direction of the bar.

“Now? I … I can’t— I … _I just poured their drinks_ ,” Bob choked out, as if shooting a man you’d just poured a beer for was the lowest sort of sin. Benny would have thought so. Todd too. 

But Marv’s moral code wasn’t above treachery or cruelty. Bob knew that fucking well enough. It recognised only one authority: self. 

“Fuck does that matter? Listen to me — _listen_ to me,” Marv demanded, wrenching Bob’s head forward. “It has to be _now_. Kid’s got a fucking motor for a mouth. You know that. I _drove_ him here, right? Told him I’d give him his change back if he kept his little Christmas miracle a secret for one goddamn night. Just to get him here” — Marv pointed to the ground, then at Bob — “so I could talk to you. Figure something out. But now — now he’s off for some fucking weed. _Christ_.”

 _Always the way of things._

“Why didn’t you just ‘take care of him’ in the car?” Bob shrugged out. Of course he knew the answer. Like hundreds of abused dogs in this city, Bob wasn’t kept on a short chain of rusty obligation and and kicked around at select moments for nothing. 

“You fucking know,” Marv sneered, looking Bob directly in the eye. They were no longer red-rimmed and desperate, but angry and full of disdain as he spat it out a second time. “I need you. I need you to do this for me. For us. _Right the fuck now_.” 

Marv took Bob’s hand, the one becoming numb around an ice-cold pistol, and gave it a painful squeeze. 

At that moment, the bells above the bar’s door gave a little jingle. 

It was a funny thing to remember so vividly — not befitting the moment at all — but in the days, weeks, and years that followed, only the sight of the oil tank would bring Bob back to that night with more pain than those goddamn door bells.

It was the only funeral dirge Richie Whelan would ever receive and he played it himself the minute he stepped outside into that cold, dark New England night.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie hadn’t stirred. Bob wondered how fucked up it would be to pray for the kid to stay unconscious long enough to carry him into his bathtub and plunge his ma’s expensive chef’s knife into his chest cavity. 
> 
> How sick it would be, really, to pray that he was already dead. 
> 
> Logically, these were appropriate thoughts given the circumstances. All Bob could think was how much the inside of his head sounded like Marv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, it's all in Bob's hands now, and they're getting a bit dirty.
> 
> I've updated the tags (perhaps a bit belatedly) to reflect the violence of the story overall.
> 
> Thanks so so much again for feedback.

Laid up on Marv’s sofa for six weeks, Bob had had more than enough time to reexamine Brownsville and turn over all its alternate outcomes in his drugged mind. He’d chased one or two scenarios far enough down the rabbit hole that he found himself — much to his shame — pondering the perfect murder. 

How could he do otherwise? When Dottie wasn’t around, Marv clearly felt he was doing his cousin some sort of strange kindness by substituting a Meg Ryan rom-com in the VCR for _Silence of the Lambs_ or _Basic Instinct_. 

It wouldn’t be like Brownsville, Bob had told himself. That was a shit show and only by some miracle had he escaped with his life and a clean record. He believed in miracles, as any God-fearing son of Elaine Saginowski would, but he also knew they were a bit thin on the ground in the real world. The world Cousin Marv lived in.

No, the perfect murder would have to be cleaner than Brownsville. _Much cleaner_. And quieter too. Those stale ruminations centred Bob now, calmed him, as he drove up the street following Richie’s known trajectory. 

They allowed him to function in spite of the deafening tattoo of his own heartbeat in his head. It was the suddenness of Marv’s request that had nearly debilitated him; once Bob succumbed to the inevitable, the premeditated part of this act became more of a saving grace than the mortal sin his soul was screaming against. 

He spotted Richie under the yellow street-lamps, the ex-quarterback hunched into his hoodie but giving a little skip every few steps. Whether he was feeling especially footloose or just fucking cold, Bob didn’t care to know. There was only one thing he needed Richie to do. 

Rolling up behind him, Bob lowered his window and called out in advance to disarm the kid. 

“Hey Richie.” 

Richie turned round in surprise, but then let loose a warm smile of recognition. 

“Bob! Guys not giving you enough work at the bar?”

The truck inched forward and Richie was at his window now. 

“Mmm yeah. Something like that.” Bob nodded and gestured to the passenger’s seat. “Wanna lift? Cold as balls out.” 

“Hell yeah,” the kid answered, dashing to the other side of Bob’s truck. 

In the moment he had left in his innocent solitude, the only thought Bob had was for his shaking hands as he rolled up his window. 

He couldn’t afford to be imprecise. 

Richie hopped into the passenger’s seat, rubbing his hands together and blowing into them with such life it nearly made Bob sick. He let his foot off the brake and eased the truck forward, preparing to take the first left turn into a dark avenue before Richie could let out any happy babble of words that might stay Bob’s hand.

“Just to Newport Street, hope that’s not too far out of your—” 

But before the kid could finish, with a speed Marv would have thought impossible of his cousin, Bob whipped his hand up from the console where it had been resting and smashed the butt of the pistol against Richie’s temple. 

Richie’s head bounced against the dash as his unconscious frame slowly crumpled towards the floorboard. 

Bob gave it all of two seconds to confirm that Richie was out cold before accelerating as quietly as possible. Everything depended on how quickly he could get to his house. 

His mother’s house. 

Bob had to admit that not factoring his continued cohabitation with his ma into his picture of the perfect murder had been a mistake, but not one he could honestly blame himself for. Even his milksoppy eighteen-year-old self had nursed some natural youthful expectation that he might at least move out… if only into a house down the street with that nebulous angel of change — _the girl_. 

You couldn't predict things.

A handful of prostitutes later with a pistol in his hand and a concussed guy in his passenger’s seat and Bob never felt more in his life like an oversized child. 

So he could only pray that his overaged mother had long since removed her hearing aids, kneeled down to finger her rosary over three knitted duvets, and recited her nightly damnation. 

_Cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls._

He glanced at the clock. 11:14 P.M. 

The shaking in Bob’s hands had not only not abated, his whole body was now rattling some staccato in his very seat, despite the black hole squeezing his center in a vice of adrenaline and horror. It was the only thing he _did_ feel in those moments as he drove with the windows down, the better to anticipate passing traffic or pedestrians, keyed up as he was to expect to confrontation at any moment from his guilt in corporeal form. 

Richie hadn’t stirred. Bob wondered how fucked up it would be to pray for the kid to stay unconscious long enough to carry him into his bathtub and plunge his ma’s expensive chef’s knife into his chest cavity. 

How sick it would be, _really_ , to pray that he was already dead. 

Logically, these were appropriate thoughts given the circumstances. All Bob could think was how much the inside of his head sounded like Marv. 

As the truck eased into the driveway, Bob noticed with whatever iota of relief his oppressed mind could possibly spare that all the lights in his mother’s house were indeed out. 

He switched off the engine with barely responsive fingers before the temptation of a hastily realised second-best option surged back into them in a hot pulse of panic. The key scraped back into the ignition. 

_Marv would take care of his ma. He would owe her that much at least. And he certainly — if only because he was always fucking skint — wouldn’t let her be imprisoned in some facility like his uncle. He was little better than a walking vegetable, while ma, though infirm, had a mind like… like, well, the chef’s knife._

He could do it. Hop on the Belt, get up to about 130, and slam into the first overpass he came across. 

A man couldn’t be twice damned, after all. 

Problem was, smearing himself next to Richie on a concrete wall would leave nobody to take care of Marv. Not in Dottie’s way — enabling lousy habits, mollifying him with ice cream and smokes — but in the making-damn-sure-he-never-did-another-line-again kind of way.

_Making damn sure snuffing out this kid’s life isn’t some fucking waste._

Bob removed the keys from the ignition once again, this time stuffing them into his pocket, cocking the pistol, and opening the door with firm finality. 

_"Richie has to be taken care of, before those guys take care of us. They want this bar."_

Marv’s final words to him before he’d obeyed the carol of the bells resounded in his mind as he eased open the passenger door and gingerly stuck two fingers under Richie’s jaw. 

He was still alive. 

Bob exhaled shakily and passed his hands over his face. 

"For the goddamn bar then."


End file.
